How to maximize the total strength of survivors in the battle and the tournament in the gladiator game model

Mariya A. Khodyakova

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, Department of Mathematical Statistics and Stochastic Processes

Abstract: In 1984, Kaminsky, Luks and Nelson formulated the gladiator game model of two teams. Suppose that a team wants to maximize its expected strength at the end of the battle. We consider an optimization problem: how to distribute the team’s strength among its gladiators. In the above we suppose that the teams distribute their strengths at the begining of the battle. We also consider Nash equilibria when the teams may change gladiators' strengths before every fight. We consider two cases. In both, the first team wants to maximize its strength. The second team wants to maximize its strength too in the first case or wants to minimize the first team's strength in the second case.

Keywords: colonel Blotto games, gladiator games, optimal strategy, Nash equilibrium.

UDC: 519.837.3
BBK: 22.171

Received: 19.12.2023
Revised: 04.03.2024
Accepted: 01.04.2024